Pirate Party election leader Marcel Kolaja: We want to turn the challenges that we face into opportunities

Photo: Barbora Navrátilová, Radio Prague International

Marcel Kolaja is the leader of the Czech Pirate Party in the European elections. He is an IT specialist and internet freedom and digital rights activist and has served in the European Parliament since the 2019 elections.

Europe has seen some tough years – the Covid pandemic, the energy crisis, economic problems and now the war in Ukraine that people fear may spill over. That opens the door to a lot of populism. What will be your message to voters and what can you offer to counterbalance those “easy solutions”?

“The Pirate Party has always been a party that makes decisions based on data. We really like the data-based approach and we are realistic. Our approach is not populist, we do not tell people about how the future will be great. We are open in saying and admitting that there are challenges that we have to overcome, but we would like to turn those challenges into opportunities. So when it comes to climate change, which is currently one of the biggest challenges we face, we point out that all parts of the world are going through an economic transition that is linked to a reaction to climate change and warn that if Europe does not go through the same economic transition, then we will be falling behind. And that is not something we want to happen.”

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Author: Daniela Lazarová